Items tagged with Battery

Samsung did the right thing by ditching the plastic construction that had become so familiar on prior Galaxy devices and switching to a premium design for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Plus, but did a quality look and feel really have to come at the expense of a microSD card slot? Or a removable battery? Unfortunately that's the way things went, though Incipio's offGRIP extended battery case looks to save the day on both fronts.Let's start with the battery. The offGRID case sports a 3,700 mAh battery compared to the 2,550 mAh battery found in both flagship Galaxy devices. That means you can expect...Read more...

It was the furthest thing from being a secret that Tesla had major ambitions for its battery-producing "Gigafactory", located in Nevada, but as we can now see, we've yet to see the full extent of what the company has in store. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tesla has tripled its land holdings over the past couple of months, giving it about 3,000 acres worth of desert to thrive on. Apparently, the purchase for the additional land was made at a time when the company's finances were strained from retooling a factory in California, but, to the company's favor, it recently secured credit lines...Read more...

It's pretty much an inevitability: our out-of-the-box smartphones are nice and fast, but before too long, they demand a refresh for a slight taste of the original performance parameters. This is especially true on Android, both for smartphones and tablets (both of which I have a lot of experience), and there are many excuses for it. A poor file system, "bit rot", too much bloat, and so forth. If a research team out of Seoul has its way, we could see some dramatic improvements to both performance and battery life in the future. The tech is called WALDIO, an interesting acronym...Read more...

Apple Watch owners who want to significantly extend the battery life of their wearable will have to ask themselves how much they're willing to pay for the convenience. And by "significantly," we mean more than 30 additional hours, the amount of time the developers of the Reserve Strap claim their accessory will add to Apple's already pricey smartwatch. That works out to a factor of 2.7 times, or 167 percent more usage. Real world results will depend on a number of factors, but if a person typically achieves Apple's rated 18 hours of Apple Watch functionality, the Reserve Strap will up the ante...Read more...

Last month HotHardware reported on how Ohio-based Nikola Labs wowed the crowd at the Disrupt conference — and the Internet — by presenting a smartphone case. Of course, it didn't trot out one of your typical keep-the-dings-off smartphone cases, though, but one that can capture the 90 percent of waste energy pumped out by a typical smartphone in the form of radio frequencies (RF), and convert that energy into DC power that can be channeled back into the encased device to provide it with a 30% energy boost. Science or science-fiction? Too good to be true?...Read more...

With the "Internet Of Things" supposed to be a major part of our future, there are a number of challenges to conquer. For wearables, such as smartwatches, the issue of power isn't a serious one, as people can just plug them in at night and have them ready-to-go in the morning. But many consider that adding a smartwatch to their list of devices to keep constantly charged is challenging enough. What's going to happen when other wearables come along, or IoT devices, such as surveillance cameras? Believe it or not, it might be possible to help keep some of these devices alive with the same Wi-Fi signals...Read more...

We learned some important details about Tesla's upcoming in-home batteries late last week, and now, thanks to analyst Trip Chowdhry, we now have a clearer idea of what it will cost. Backing up what we learned earlier this month, Tesla's battery will cost $13,000 outright. There's also the option to shell out $1,500 for a down payment and then pay $15/month for 10 years, after which point the battery will go back to Elon Musk-backed SolarCity. Tesla Model S battery pack Nothing has changed so far regarding Tesla also getting into supplying batteries to "utilities". As mentioned in last week's...Read more...

We reported earlier this month that Tesla could soon unveil a home-targeted battery, and lo and behold, we'll be learning about it before the month's even over. According to an email sent to investors, the announcement will take place on April 30, and as per a Tesla spokesperson, we'll learn why Tesla's solution is so great, and why previous solutions weren't. Tesla IR on April 30 event: "We will introduce the Tesla home battery and a very large utility scale battery."— John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) April 21, 2015 What's new information is the fact that Tesla isn't only targeting the home --...Read more...

We're always hearing about promising new battery technologies, though in the end, they're always too expensive, too big, or too whatever to make it into the mainstream. Eventually that's going to change and there will be a breakthrough that truly redefines the battery category, the question, who's going to do it? Perhaps Google. According to The Wall Street Journal, one of the teams working inside Google's not-so-secret X lab is entirely focused on battery technology. As the story goes, former Apple battery expert Dr. Ramesh Bhardwaj and his team of researchers began testing batteries developed...Read more...

Apple's Jony Ive thinks consumers want thinner smartphones rather than longer battery life. I say that's hogwash, which is why I'm cautiously optimistic about yet another battery technology that promises to keep our gadgets running longer. In this case, it's a lithium-ion battery that stores twice as much energy, and it's supposedly close to commercialization.Yes, it's true that we've heard a plethora of battery breakthroughs and promising technologies that promises to shake up the industry before, yet not much as really changed in the past several years. Why? Many of the breakthroughs we hear...Read more...

It never hurts to bring along a portable charger when you're out hiking, camping, or otherwise seeking fun and adventure. The more adventurous you are, the more rugged your gear should be, and Dark Energy's Poseidon mobile battery pack is about as tough as it gets. How tough? Well, it can withstand a shotgun blast from 35 feet away. We don't recommend putting yourself in situations where shotguns might be aimed in your direction, but that's not the point here. Dark Energy posted a video of its Poseidon surviving a shotgun blast to demonstrate on Kickstarter just how tough this compact charger is....Read more...

One of the challenges smartwatch designers face is that of battery life. Understanding that users don't want to be bothered with frequent recharges, companies are devoting a lot of time and R&D into figuring out how to extend battery life. Looking to up the ante, ASUS over the weekend hinted that its next smartwatch might be able to run for up to seven days before needing a recharge. That's in stark contrast to Apple's goal, which is to get its Apple Watch to last all of 19 hours before needing a charge. Active use would be far shorter -- Apple is aiming for 2.5 hours to 4 hours when running...Read more...

Apple chief Tim Cook said last year said that most people would use their Apple Watch so much that they'll need to charge it daily. He didn't provide any specifics at the time, though it's now being reported that users might be able to squeeze 19 hours out of their Apple brand wearables when combining active and passive use.This is coming from "people with knowledge of the Apple Watch's development" who spoke with 9To5Mac, presumably on the condition of anonymity since Apple itself hasn't disclosed any such details. According to those sources, Apple is aiming for a high-end experience by combining...Read more...

The National Transportation Safety Board has released its findings regarding the investigation it conducted following the events that led to the grounding of 50 long-range Boeing 787s. According to its report, a series of failures have been attributed to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing Co., and its supplier of lithium-ion batteries. Back in January 2013, ground workers at Boston Logan International Airport noticed that smoke and flames were coming from an auxiliary power unit lithium-ion battery that was in a Japan Airlines 787 Dreamliner that was parked at a gate. A second incident...Read more...